Doctor Strange 2: the Multiverse of Madness has just been released in the cinemas and there is a whole list of must-sees before the new movie. When my family came back from the cinema, they told me that… well, it’s strange. Not necessarily bad but complex, and if you have not heard about Wanda Vision, What if…? or the X-men movies, the plot is going to be a little blurry. The problem is you need to get Disney+ to have access to everything. You also need time – a lot of time. This issue leads to the misrepresentation of certain movies. A financial interest is behind this strategy, as often in the cinematic industry. If you liked the first one, you will watch the others, thus spending more and more money for the sake of the Marvel universe. But this implies keeping track of every new release both in cinemas and on the streaming platforms, and time flies!

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is becoming more and more dense and complicated. If you’re losing track of it, I understand. Nonetheless, we can’t deny the incredible work the MCU did to build their world. It is the only example of such a wide cinematic universe. In 2008, Iron Man was released and marked the beginning of the journey. Since then, every movie has brought a new brick to the building. It works in phases, the current one being the fourth. Each phase has a thread: phase one was about introducing the characters and the universe to get familiar with them; phase two was centred on the infinity stones, what they are and where to find them, thus leading to phase three and the real involvement of Thanos, the super villain, into the chaos of the world. Phase three ended with the destruction of the stones and Thanos. One could argue that it could have been the end of it. Superheroes saved the world together, they gave a good lesson about the advantages of teamwork and solidarity, there is nothing more left of the villain but ashes, everything is just fine, apparently. Yes, but no. That would be too easy. So, there is phase four which may be the start of the mess. It focuses on a new thread: the multiverse. This means that the reality we live in is only one of the infinite alternative possibilities. The multiverse is introduced in the movies of the fourth phase, such as Spider–man: No Way Home but also in the new Disney+ series, like Wanda Vision or Loki.